Ricky Stenhouse Jr., driver of the No. 17 Best Buy Ford Fusion, heads to New Hampshire Motor Speedway this weekend on a upswing of momentum following his second top-10 finish of the season last weekend in Chicago. Stenhouse talks about what he and the team have figured out, his own personal Chase, and how he will race those drivers in the actual Chase for the Sprint Cup championship.
RICKY STENHOUSE JR., NO. 17 FORD FUSION – YOU ARE COMING OFF A TOP-10 AT CHICAGO, THAT IS TWO IN A ROW. “It has been a good couple of weeks. We are excited to finish out the season. Hopefully we can keep it rolling. We got a pole at Atlanta and now two top-10 finishes. Hopefully we can keep that momentum going because we aren’t in the Chase but we are acting like these last 10 races are a Chase for us and we want the best finishes we can down the stretch.”
YOU HAVE HAD A CHALLENGING YEAR, BUT IT HAS BEEN MUCH BETTER LATELY. HAVE YOU FIGURED SOMETHING OUT? “I wish we knew. I think it has been a combination of sitting down with Scott and getting better ideas of what we need to do at the end of races. We have been getting better track position and hanging on to it at the end. Everybody in the shop is working hard to make the cars better. We still have a long way to go but we are getting better. I think it is just a whole lot of hard work by everyone on the team.”
SUNDAY WAS A DIFFERENT TYPE OF DAY WITH THE LONG DELAY, WHAT WAS THAT LIKE FOR YOU AS A DRIVER? “It certainly took awhile. We practiced all weekend knowing that that was a possibility to race at night. We based everything off the first practice Saturday morning early and that seemed to pay off a little bit. We started the race and didn’t obviously get it all in. We got a break, a long one, and we ate, took a nap, watched some football and then we came back out and finished the race. I wish that race was at night all the time. I enjoy racing under the lights and Chicago at night with the rough bumps in it now you are getting a lot of sparks off the cars bottoming out and I think that stuff is cool.”
WHAT HAS BEEN THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE FOR YOU THIS SEASON IN YOUR TRANSITION TO FULL TIME CUP RACING? “The biggest transition has been racing with guys and teams I didn’t race with in the Nationwide Series and learning those guys. Like I have told everybody, the horsepower difference is big and also practicing in parts of the day that you aren’t going to race. Look at a place like Richmond where you practice dead in the middle of the day when the sun is out and track temperature is as hot as it is the whole weekend and then you race at night. There are adjustments that need to be made in the car. There is a feel you are looking for at the end of the practices that I haven’t quite gotten figured out yet. That is quite a bit different than the Nationwide Series. I think we are getting better each week and have been learning all season long. Hopefully we can apply that to these last few races and carry that momentum into the off season.”
HOW HAS YOUR TEAM COME TOGETHER? HOW ARE THINGS DIFFERENT THAN BACK IN JANUARY WHEN YOU FIRST GOT TOGETHER? “I think everybody has a better idea of what to expect from me, what to expect from our crew chief who was brand new coming into it and a lot of guys on the team hadn’t worked with. There was a lot of unknowns starting the season out as far as guys not working together and new positions. I think everyone is in a groove of knowing what they need to do and it seems to be working out well right now.”
YOU HEAD TO LOUDON THIS WEEKEND, WHAT IS YOUR APPROACH GOING INTO SUNDAY? “Finish the race. Last time we didn’t finish. Well, we did but it sure wasn’t good. We tested New Hampshire this year and thought we would be better when we went there and all our Roush Fenway cars weren’t where they needed to be. We also went to Phoenix and did a tire test not too long ago and I feel like we may have learned a few things. We will look to apply that to our setup this weekend and see if we can get rolling a little better. We want to keep our momentum going and make good pit calls at the end of races and throughout the race we need to keep track position which has been key to what we have been doing the last few weeks. Keeping all that in mind, we need to keep the car as clean as we can and give respect to the guys racing for the Chase. You don’t want to screw that up. We will be mindful of that and go race hard.”
HOW DO YOU BALANCE THAT ASPECT OF RACING THE CHASE DRIVERS? “There are only 13 so it isn’t like you have to remember 20 or so of them. It makes it pretty easy. It seems like 90-percent of the guys are in the top-10 anyway. They tend to run up front, that is why they are in the Chase in the first place. You know the guys who are in the Chase and have things to lose or not and you are definitely more careful around those guys because you don’t want to cost those guys points, or a race or a championship. I am just mindful of those guys and I know who they are.”
WHAT IS THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE FOR YOU ON THE TRACK THIS WEEKEND? “There are some pretty big bumps there going into turn three. So you want your car to be as smooth as it can over the bumps. You are trying to get the car to rotate through the center, so you are loosening it up but at the same time when you get the center better the entry gets loose. I would say getting the center better but keeping the entry tight is a big key. For us, turning the center is one of the biggest issues and I am sure it is for everyone else.”
